TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas agency plans to conduct a full audit of a water parks inspection records before it reopens this spring, a state official said Wednesday, after criminal charges were filed over the decapitation of a 10-year-old boy on the worlds tallest waterslide there in 2016.
The state Department of Labor said it will review reports from daily inspections of rides by park staff at the Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, Kansas, before it is scheduled to reopen May 25 for its annual season. A state law enacted last year after Caleb Schwabs death requires amusement parks to keep daily reports on their rides and to give them annual inspections.
A grand jury has issued indictments with multiple criminal charges against the park; the construction company that built the giant waterslide; former park operations director Tyler Austin Miles; the rides co-designer, John Timothy Schooley, and a co-owner of Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts, Jeffrey Wayne Henry.
Henry, Schooley and the construction company face one felony count of second-degree murder and Miles and the park, one count of involuntary manslaughter, over Calebs death. The raft the boy was riding on the 17-story Verruckt ride went airborne and hit an overhead loop.
State law allows parks to have their own staff do daily inspections and to have private inspectors do the annual inspections, rather than state inspectors. The inspectors doing the annual reviews must be either licensed engineers with two years experience with amusement rides, have five years experience in inspecting rides or have been certified by one of three industry groups.
